“The Smithly-Dubbs are in Town,” said Sir James. “I wish you would show
them some attention. Ask them to lunch with you at the Ritz or
somewhere.”
“From the little I’ve seen of the Smithly-Dubbs I don’t thing I want to
cultivate their acquaintance,” said Lady Drakmanton.
“They always work for us at election times,” said her husband; “I don’t
suppose they influence very many votes, but they have an uncle who is on
one of my ward committees, and another uncle speaks sometimes at some of
our less important meetings. Those sort of people expect some return in
the shape of hospitality.”
“Expect it!” exclaimed Lady Drakmanton; “the Misses Smithly-Dubb do more
than that; they almost demand it. They belong to my club, and hang about
the lobby just about lunch-time, all three of them, with their tongues
hanging out of their mouths and the six-course look in their eyes. If I
were to breathe the word ‘lunch’ they would hustle me into a taxi and
scream ‘Ritz’ or ‘Dieudonne’s’ to the driver before I knew what was
happening.”
“All the same, I think you ought to ask them to a meal of some sort,”
persisted Sir James.
“I consider that showing hospitality to the Smithly-Dubbs is carrying
Free Food principles to a regrettable extreme,” said Lady Drakmanton;
“I’ve entertained the Joneses and the Browns and the Snapheimers and the
Lubrikoffs, and heaps of others whose names I forget, but I don’t see why
I should inflict the society of the Misses Smithly-Dubb on myself for a
solid hour. Imagine it, sixty minutes, more or less, of unrelenting
gobble and gabble. Why can’t _you_ take them on, Milly?” she asked,
turning hopefully to her sister.
“I don’t know them,” said Milly hastily.
“All the better; you can pass yourself off as me. People say that we are
so alike that they can hardly tell us apart, and I’ve only spoken to
these tiresome young women about twice in my life, at committee-rooms,
and bowed to them in the club. Any of the club page-boys will point them
out to you; they’re always to be found lolling about the hall just before
lunch-time.”
“My dear Betty, don’t be absurd,” protested Milly; “I’ve got some people
lunching with me at the Carlton to-morrow, and I’m leaving Town the day
afterwards.”
“What time is your lunch to-morrow?” asked Lady Drakmanton reflectively.
“Two o’clock,” said Milly.
“Good,” said her sister; “the Smithly-Dubbs shall lunch with me
to-morrow. It shall be rather an amusing lunch-party. At least, I shall
be amused.”
The last two remarks she made to herself. Other people did not always
appreciate her ideas of humour. Sir James never did.
The next day Lady Drakmanton made some marked variations in her usual
toilet effects. She dressed her hair in an unaccustomed manner, and put
on a hat that added to the transformation of her appearance. When she
had made one or two minor alterations she was sufficiently unlike her
usual smart self to produce some hesitation in the greeting which the
Misses Smithly-Dubb bestowed on her in the club-lobby. She responded,
however, with a readiness which set their doubts at rest.
“What is the Carlton like for lunching in?” she asked breezily.
The restaurant received an enthusiastic recommendation from the three
sisters.
“Let’s go and lunch there, shall we?” she suggested, and in a few
minutes’ time the Smithly-Dubb mind was contemplating at close quarters a
happy vista of baked meats and approved vintage.
“Are you going to start with caviare? I am,” confided Lady Drakmanton,
and the Smithly-Dubbs started with caviare. The subsequent dishes were
chosen in the same ambitious spirit, and by the time they had arrived at
the wild duck course it was beginning to be a rather expensive lunch.
The conversation hardly kept pace with the brilliancy of the menu.
Repeated references on the part of the guests to the local political
conditions and prospects in Sir James’s constituency were met with vague
“ahs” and “indeeds” from Lady Drakmanton, who might have been expected to
be specially interested.
“I think when the Insurance Act is a little better understood it will
lose some of its present unpopularity,” hazarded Cecilia Smithly-Dubb.
“Will it? I dare say. I’m afraid politics don’t interest me very much,”
said Lady Drakmanton.
The three Miss Smithly-Dubbs put down their cups of Turkish coffee and
stared. Then they broke into protesting giggles.
“Of course, you’re joking,” they said.
“Not me,” was the disconcerting answer; “I can’t make head or tail of
these bothering old politics. Never could, and never want to. I’ve
quite enough to do to manage my own affairs, and that’s a fact.”
“But,” exclaimed Amanda Smithly-Dubb, with a squeal of bewilderment
breaking into her voice, “I was told you spoke so informingly about the
Insurance Act at one of our social evenings.”
It was Lady Drakmanton who stared now. “Do you know,” she said, with a
scared look around her, “rather a dreadful thing is happening. I’m
suffering from a complete loss of memory. I can’t even think who I am.
I remember meeting you somewhere, and I remember you asking me to come
and lunch with you here, and that I accepted your kind invitation.
Beyond that my mind is a positive blank.”
The scared look was transferred with intensified poignancy to the faces
of her companions.
“_You_ asked _us_ to lunch,” they exclaimed hurriedly. That seemed a
more immediately important point to clear up than the question of
identity.
“Oh, no,” said the vanishing hostess, “_that_ I do remember about. You
insisted on my coming here because the feeding was so good, and I must
say it comes up to all you said about it. A very nice lunch it’s been.
What I’m worrying about is who on earth am I? I haven’t the faintest
notion?”
“You are Lady Drakmanton,” exclaimed the three sisters in chorus.
“Now, don’t make fun of me,” she replied, crossly, “I happen to know her
quite well by sight, and she isn’t a bit like me. And it’s an odd thing
you should have mentioned her, for it so happens she’s just come into the
room. That lady in black, with the yellow plume in her hat, there over
by the door.”
The Smithly-Dubbs looked in the indicated direction, and the uneasiness
in their eyes deepened into horror. In outward appearance the lady who
had just entered the room certainly came rather nearer to their
recollection of their Member’s wife than the individual who was sitting
at table with them.
“Who _are_ you, then, if that is Lady Drakmanton?” they asked in
panic-stricken bewilderment.
“That is just what I don’t know,” was the answer; “and you don’t seem to
know much better than I do.”
“You came up to us in the club—”
“In what club?”
“The New Didactic, in Calais Street.”
“The New Didactic!” exclaimed Lady Drakmanton with an air of returning
illumination; “thank you so much. Of course, I remember now who I am.
I’m Ellen Niggle, of the Ladies’ Brasspolishing Guild. The Club employs
me to come now and then and see to the polishing of the brass fittings.
That’s how I came to know Lady Drakmanton by sight; she’s very often in
the Club. And you are the ladies who so kindly asked me out to lunch.
Funny how it should all have slipped my memory, all of a sudden. The
unaccustomed good food and wine must have been too much for me; for the
moment I really couldn’t call to mind who I was. Good gracious,” she
broke off suddenly, “it’s ten past two; I should be at a polishing job in
Whitehall. I must scuttle off like a giddy rabbit. Thanking you ever
so.”
She left the room with a scuttle sufficiently suggestive of the animal
she had mentioned, but the giddiness was all on the side of her
involuntary hostesses. The restaurant seemed to be spinning round them;
and the bill when it appeared did nothing to restore their composure.
They were as nearly in tears as it is permissible to be during the
luncheon hour in a really good restaurant. Financially speaking, they
were well able to afford the luxury of an elaborate lunch, but their
ideas on the subject of entertaining differed very sharply, according to
the circumstances of whether they were dispensing or receiving
hospitality. To have fed themselves liberally at their own expense was,
perhaps, an extravagance to be deplored, but, at any rate, they had had
something for their money; to have drawn an unknown and socially
unremunerative Ellen Niggle into the net of their hospitality was a
catastrophe that they could not contemplate with any degree of calmness.
The Smithly-Dubbs never quite recovered from their unnerving experience.
They have given up politics and taken to doing good.